Two months after concluding its best season in five years, D.C. United opened camp in suburban Virginia on Friday with intrigue surrounding a couple of key players.

General manager Dave Kasper confirmed that designated player Hamdi Salihi, who arrived from Austria’s Rapid Vienna last winter with considerable fanfare, won’t return. But getting rid of the Albanian star won’t be easy because of his guaranteed contract.

“We just don’t project him competing for a starting spot,” Kasper told The Washington Post. “He’s a very good striker, but we’re not able to make it work for him.”

Salihi, 28, was the second-highest paid player on United in 2012, behind Dwayne De Rosario, and D.C. would either have to buy out his contract or convince another club to take him on. He scored six goals in 24 MLS appearances, failed to make an impact in games in other ways and never started after July, even after D.C. coach Ben Olsen shuffled the lineup following De Rosario’s injury in September.

“More than likely he will end up overseas,” Kasper said of Salihi.

Meanwhile, defender/midfielder Andy Najar apparently has impressed Anderlecht during his loan stint, prompting an offer from the Belgian champion. United surely would have accepted the ludicrously high $8 million rumored to be on the table, but Kasper isn’t yet ready to part with his young Honduran winger for what actually was offered.

He said Anderlecht’s recent bid was “nothing worth contemplating” and that Najar, 19, was due back in D.C. in two weeks.

United also is awaiting the arrival of two players with experience in South America. New designated player Rafael Teixeira de Souza, a 20-year-old Brazilian striker on loan from Bahia, is awaiting his visa and hopes to join United in Florida next week, according to the Post.

Also expected in Florida is trialist Diego Restrepo, a goalkeeper who grew up in Colombia and Florida and attended the University of Virginia before returning to Colombia two years ago to play professionally. He then spent 2012 with Venezuela’s Deportivo Táchira.